Wilhelm Haupt (Evangelist)

Wilhelm Haupt

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Haupt (born October 28, 1831 in Breslau ; † February 20, 1913 in Sopot near Danzig ), was a German Baptist pastor and evangelist . He belonged to the second generation of founding German Baptists. His life's work and, above all, his service as an evangelist contributed significantly to the internal and external structure of the then young free church .

Life

Wilhelm Haupt spent his childhood and youth in Breslau. His parents' house was on Schweidnitzer Strasse and was named Meerschiff after a gable sculpture . His parents originally came from a well-to-do family, but had largely lost their fortune during the Napoleonic Wars . This loss - so Haupt in his memoirs - "had brought them spiritual gain". In 1830 they separated from the United Evangelical Church in Prussia and joined the Old Lutheran Church. However, since the Old Lutherans were not currently authorized to perform sacramental acts, Wilhelm Haupt - the fourth of six children - was baptized in 1831 by a Uniate pastor . The old Lutheran congregation reacted to this baptism with serious reproaches, which prompted Wilhelm Haupt's father to look for a new spiritual home with the Moravian Brethren . Wilhelm Haupt grew up in a Christian separatist family and received crucial impulses for his later career. According to Haupt's memoirs, other important sources of inspiration were school, the spiritual life of the Moravian congregation and his older brothers, who had found their way to the Baptists at a very early age. Wilhelm Haupt also got in touch with them through her. On Saturday, October 22nd, 1848, he was baptized by the Breslau church elder Ignaz Straube in the Oder near Breslau and became a member of the local Baptist church.

Immediately after his baptism, Wilhelm Haupt was called to work in the then still small Breslau Baptist church. Choir , Sunday school and youth work were his first fields of activity. As a 21-year-old he set out on a journey. His destination was Hamburg , where Johann Gerhard Oncken and the first German Baptist church he founded. He began his hike on June 7, 1852 and reached Hamburg via Frankfurt (Oder) , Berlin and Boizenburg / Elbe on June 30, 1852. In the same time he began training at the newly founded mission school , the forerunner of the theological seminary . Since the training concept closely linked theory and practice, Haupt had to take over the preaching service at numerous preaching places of the Hamburg Baptist congregation on Sundays. As early as 1854 he was sent to the Baptist congregation in Bremen , which had been founded nine years earlier and which had subsidiary congregations in a number of surrounding cities and towns. The focus of his work was the development of the community in Delmenhorst . At the side of Pastor Friedrich Oncken , Haupt completed his vicariate and was ordained pastor on August 1, 1858 .

From 1866 to 1879 Wilhelm Haupt was a preacher in the Baptist community of Barmen and then - from 1879 to 1882 in Cologne . Then he was called to be an evangelist of the Baptist Union. This service, for which the Hamburg merchant Jakob Braun made the funds available, was not limited to the German states. Wilhelm Haupt traveled from Altona , where his residence was at this stage, to Hungary , Romania , Austria , the Czech Republic , Switzerland and Russia . He is considered to be "one of the first modern evangelists".

During these years, Wilhelm Haupt also founded the Baptist orphan welfare, which he led into old age. It was particularly important to her to save orphans from being placed in a home and to place them in suitable families. The more comprehensive social-diaconal work Service for the Child later emerged from it. Today's focus of this facility is the pastoral care of single parents, which is offered under the name Alone with Child .

In 1892 Haupt ended his evangelistic travel activities and became pastor of the Altona-Ottensen congregation, which was still being established. In 1896 he worked in the same position in Danzig. Even during his retirement he was active as a preacher and helped plant the church in Sopot. There he died at the age of 82.

Work (selection)

Wilhelm Haupt wrote a number of practical theological and autobiographical writings. This includes:

• Fifty-two lessons in questions. For use by Sunday school teachers . With a foreword by the oldest Sunday school teacher in our association, JG Oncken , Hamburg 1873
• On the mass sermon , Zeitschrift Hilfsbote , Cassel 1911, p. 93ff
• 56 years in the ministry preaching reconciliation , Zeitschrift Hilfsbote , Cassel 1912, p. 22ff
• From the sea ship to the land of calm , in: Journal of Truth Witnesses , No. 22 to 32, Kassel 1913

Wilhelm Haupt was also active as a song writer. One of his well-known songs is the baptismal song, composed in 1894, I follow you, Jesus into the flood . It can be found in the following hymn books: Voice of Faith for the Lord's Churches (No. 423), Voice of Faith for Church and House (No. 300), and Church Songs (No. 118).

literature

• Karl Söhlke, Gregor Helms u. a .: 150 years of Evangelical Free Churches (Baptists) in Bremen and around , Bremen 1998
• Günter Balders : Article Haupt, Wilhelm , in: Günter Balders (Hrsg.): A Lord, a Faith, a Baptism. 150 years of Baptist congregations in Germany , Wuppertal / Kassel 1984, p. 347 f. ISBN 3-7893-7883-6
• Rudolf Donat: How the work began. Origin of the German Baptist Congregations, Kassel 1958, pp. 273ff

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gesangbuch Gemeindelieder , Wuppertal, Kassel, Witten 1976, p. 775 ( list of authors )
2. ↑ Compare the title of his autobiography: From the sea ship to the land of calm , published in the journal Der Truthszeuger , No. 22 to 32, Kassel 1913
3. ^ Joseph Lehmann: History of the German Baptists , Part I, Hamburg 1896, p. 226
4. ↑ The more precise circumstances of his conversion and his connection to the Baptist congregation in Breslau can be found in Rudolf Donat: How the work began. Origin of the German Baptist Congregations , Kassel 1958, p. 273f
5. ↑ Homepage of the Baptist Congregation Wuppertal-Barmen ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on March 23, 2010 
6. ↑ Günter Balders: Article Haupt, Wilhelm , in: in:: A Lord, a Faith, a Baptism. 150 Years of Baptist Congregations in Germany (Ed. Günter Balders), Wuppertal / Kassel 1984, p. 347
7. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Simoleit (editor): Official report on the 1st Congress of European Baptists. Held in Berlin from August 29 to September 3, 1908 , Cassel 1908, p. 139
8. ↑ Homepage of the Evangelical-Free Church Women’s Association, Working Alone with Child ( Memento from June 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ); Accessed December 20, 2015
9. ↑ Gerhard P. Michael: Music in Free Church Worship , p. 3 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 54 kB); accessed on August 3, 2013